Sunday, October 11, 2026

Carnegie Science Brings an Astronomer Talk and Star Party to Bob Lucas Library

[photo credit: Altadena Library District]

The evening program for all ages runs 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, October 17, in Altadena

The Bob Lucas Memorial Library and Literacy Center will host an evening of astronomy and discovery in collaboration with Carnegie Science from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday, October 17.

The program includes a presentation from an astronomer, space-themed bookmark crafts and, weather permitting, a star party with telescope observing under the night sky. Families, beginners and seasoned stargazers of all ages are welcome.

Activities are set for the library’s main floor and its parking lot. The library, part of the Altadena Library District, is at 2659 Lincoln Avenue.

Carnegie Science’s place in local astronomy dates to December 1904. Seeking clearer skies than existed near his native Chicago, George Ellery Hale had petitioned the newly established Carnegie institution to finance his vision. That month, while riding a mule up the San Gabriel Mountains above Pasadena, Hale took a telephone call at a way station called Martin’s Camp and learned that Carnegie Science would fund his proposed observatory on Mount Wilson. In 1910, Andrew Carnegie visited the machine shop at Mount Wilson Observatory’s Pasadena laboratory on Santa Barbara Street.

The work of Carnegie Science astronomers runs from the revelation that the universe exists beyond our own galaxy and is expanding ever outward to the discovery of dark energy. Vera Rubin’s confirmation of dark matter is also among the breakthroughs in the institution’s history.

The Hale Library at Carnegie’s Santa Barbara Street office in Pasadena holds an astronomy and physics collection used to support the observatories’ research. Until a lecture hall was completed in 1994, the library was the site of the observatories’ scientific colloquia, which included Albert Einstein in 1931.

For information, call the Bob Lucas Memorial Library and Literacy Center at (626) 798-8338.

Astronomer Talk and Star Party! will run on Saturday, October 17 at 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Bob Lucas Memorial Library and Literacy Center, 2659 Lincoln Avenue, Altadena. For more information, call (626) 798-8338 or visit https://altadenalibrary.libnet.info/event/17467235.